Comments on: Caffeine on the Night Shifthttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/
Tara Parker-Pope on HealthMon, 10 Oct 2016 04:07:10 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.9https://static01.nyt.com/images/misc/NYT_logo_rss_250x40.pngNYThttp://www.nytimes.com
By: MissGhttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-524719
Thu, 20 May 2010 22:54:24 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-524719As a student in Southern California competing for a spot in a nursing program, I learned that spacing out my cups of coffee over a few hours like a routine medication kept me constantly fueled for the marathon study sessions. Now as a night shift (1am-7:30am) worker for an assisted living facility, I found that I have to break up my sleep into two shifts too. The first is from 9am to 2:30-3:30pm, and then the second shift is from 9pm to 12am. Then I drink my coffee and slowly allow myself to wake up, and by 1am I’m at work, able to count a myriad of narcotics and assess residents for medical emergencies. When I first started this shift, I attempted to sleep during my breaks, but I always found myself incredibly groggy upon awakening, and the fear of a medication or safety error has kept me awake for the entire shift. I also found myself initially eating poorly and not exercising, but with adjustments I have been able to maintain my health. I just miss Saturday mornings at the beach!
]]>By: Janethttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-524713
Thu, 20 May 2010 22:43:05 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-524713This has nothing to do with young people. I am not addicted to caffeine but each night I drink at least one caffeine soda. I keeps me going the whole night. I only drink these sodas when I am at work. I keeps me MORE alert. Things get stressful at work in my department and the caffeine keeps me alert, Usually get one at the beginning of shift and it carries me thru. 12 hr shift are no fun! but i love 3rd shift , wouldn’t have a first shift job. Too many people around. I have been doing this for about 24 years and that is not counting the 7 I worked 1rst and 2nd. So yes a need a little pick me up at night.. By the way I work in the Emergency Department and I need to be alert and I am only the Unit Secretary(Ward Clerk) whatever you want to call it. This thing to not do is get addicted to it. God Bless the child that works 3rd shift and loves it . One of them is ME!
]]>By: Frank Hopkinshttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-523703
Wed, 19 May 2010 06:45:21 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-523703I’m a lithographic printer on permanent nightshift three twelve our nights a week, 6pm-6am. Three years ago I swapped from coffee to green tea because I found it more refreshing than black coffee. This, with a strict healthy diet of fish and vegetables, fruit and a well layered sandwich ,I feel strong all night. In any given 12 hour work period, I would drink a minimum of three cups of green tea. I enjoy my coffee more so now that it has no relationship with work.
]]>By: Sarahhttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-523319
Tue, 18 May 2010 17:12:07 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-523319I just finished working a year of nights as a first-year nurse. Whew–glad that’s over–my life is back to normal this week as I move to days. Even though I know that the shift will be faster paced and more chaotic, I am happy to have my body back on the schedule it kept for the 30 years PRIOR to going to night shift.

I did get used to it, and I pretty much changed my whole life to accommodate it. I joined a 24 hour gym, went to a 24 hour supermarket, and generally got a lot done in the hours between 11pm and 4am on my nights off. But I always felt a little crazy being awake while the rest of the world slept. Then, when I’d go to sleep, I’d have to keep my AC on, blackout shades on the windows, eye mask, ear plugs, etc. just to get quality sleep.

It was really rough on the social life; luckily for most of it, my live-in boyfriend and I had the same schedule. But we both craved sunlight–especially in the dead of winter when we’d wake up around 5pm and the sun had already set and there was no chance of seeing it again before we’d go to bed.

I’m not surprised that night shift workers have worse health profiles than their day time counterparts. It’s really hard to take care of yourself when you keep that schedule all the time–and if you don’t keep that schedule, you feel constantly exhausted and jet lagged from trying to switch it up all the time.

Bottom line, as it relates to this article–caffeine is totally crucial to staying awake on the night shift. But I think what worked just as well for me was staying on the same schedule so that my sleep was somewhat normal.

]]>By: nepohttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-523255
Tue, 18 May 2010 16:23:12 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-523255I never drank coffee until my late twenties when I worked the night shift as a nurse. The coffee on hand was often nasty, (I am still no connoisseur), but I believe it definitely helped. I did back off coffee after a marathon law school study session with much younger students drinking coffee all night when I woke up with my heart beating loudly and fast. I still drink coffee, in the morning, moderately. When on the night shift, I could drink coffee at 7am finishing my shift, and fall asleep at 8am when I got home. Night shift work definitely did a number on your health/life, but what was worse was the 2 week rotation, 2 weeks days 2 weeks nights or 2 weeks evenings 2 weeks nights. We had nurses who would routinely work 36 hour shifts — we called them kamikaze nurses.
]]>By: David Chowes, New York Cityhttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-523185
Tue, 18 May 2010 15:02:36 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-523185WELL, it’s Interesting that the results of the study seem to conform to common sense. (This is not always the case.)
]]>By: Maryhttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-523155
Tue, 18 May 2010 14:33:40 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-523155Any nurse, like myself, who has worked nights, can tell you that the first order of business at the start of a shift is to make a pot of coffee!
]]>By: Tylerhttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-523039
Tue, 18 May 2010 13:10:53 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-523039Caffeine certainly works and for these types of workers it seems essential, however there are some negative effects of caffeine as well: http://www.wealthy-choices.com/negative-effects-of-caffeine.html

Even with these side effects, caffeine probably isn’t going away anytime soon. The way caffeine works is pretty interesting, and it seems like something that is definitely needed for these types of job situations.

There may be better substitutes in the future, but night shift workers will probably always need some type of boost. Humans have evolved for so many years with a certain sleep pattern, I don’t think any of us can get use to night shift work without some type of pick me up :)

]]>By: talathielhttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-523029
Tue, 18 May 2010 13:08:18 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-523029I work days, but have a horrendous commute and children to care for and drive all over god’s green earth. The upshot is I get 3 hours sleep a night. Nothing at all keeps me going but 3 pots of French roast a day, sometimes with a shot in the dark (shot of espresso in a cup of french roast) on the way home to get me through the evening carpool schedule. I am tired all the time, feel like crap and my mood is in the pit – but I keep functioning. couldn’t do it without the java.
]]>By: T. Henryhttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-522971
Tue, 18 May 2010 12:14:49 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-522971So, I got home from work at midnight last night, went to bed and now here I am, caffeine dispenser beside me, after 5ish hours of sleep — not enough for my daily clean bill of health. I may well have a nap again before returning to work — also not desirable. At my work, the 2010 US Census, I review hundreds of paper forms filled by the very “listers” whom many of you New Yorkers reading this may well have met at your door. (If you even opened the door, by the way, I consider you a saint. Your government thanks you dearly. The pay-offs will come to you and your community in myriad ways–including the dispensation of $400 billion in services.) From 4ish PM to around midnight, my shift isn’t really worthy of the respect due the hard-core “graveyard shift”-ers out there who daily take a big one for the team. Still it messes with my preferred and arguably circadian rhythm of early bed — early rise. The office coffee, while sub-par like most office coffee, helps. It helps from the start of my shift into the evening. It wards off the glazing-over I used to accept as the pleasant prelude to going to bed. That prelude is no longer, or rather, its postponed till midnight, when after soon falling into bed I invariably toss and turn as I “wind down” both from the highly active state that the work day demanded only 45 minutes in the past. This, I hear, is hardly unique to me. It’s one the most common complaints / symptoms I hear from other atypical shifters. Is this the wearing-off of caffeine several hours earlier? Of the quite recent mental activity of the work day? Is it the forced postponement of the body’s release of melatonin that otherwise would occur a few hours before your previous “normal” bedtime was disrupted? Or does the body’s late-day melatonin release stubbornly stay on schedule with the waxing and waning of daylight? In other words, is the atypical shifter’s caffeine simply always fighting the stubbornly orthodox inclinations of a body that makes only small concessions? Or is the caffeine actually changing the body’s rhythm? Whatever your answer, let it also be said that I couldn’t possibly phrase the question at this now “early” hour for me without having returned to my coffee pot.
]]>By: Mr. Phttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-522941
Tue, 18 May 2010 11:34:31 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-522941So many young people are looking for a “quick” pick me-up and now head straight for the energy drinks – It is hard to imagine they can be safer then a coffee pick me up
]]>By: Angela Ohanianhttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-522911
Tue, 18 May 2010 04:49:01 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-522911I have worked all shifts, now I am back on the night shift. I am a nocturnal person by nature so it doesn’t bother me too much but I see how my fellow co-workers suffer and nothing helps but coffee. I was offended by the author’s use of the phrase “so-called shift work disorder.” Working nights is not pleasant. It is the most difficult and most dangerous shift because it absolutely does affect your health. Your eating habits are horrendous, you have little time or energy for exercise and you are frustrated for not being able to get as many things done during the day as you would like because you need to rest and sometimes resting during the day is difficult because the whole damn world is awake and making noise. In addition, it absoultely does affect your health – you gain weight if you have a weight problem, it can affect your blood pressure and your heart and if you are sitting down at a desk job on a 12 hour shift – well, your ankles and legs get swollen and stiff – so, the difficulties of working nights is not an illusion – it is a reality and employers should pay employees more money for the token it takes on their health as well as the difficulties in traveling to and from work on off hours, not to mention the dangers of working at night. I don’t drink that much coffee, but there are some who cannot function on the night shift without it – so wake up and smell the coffee Tara Parker-Pope! Some day your life may depend on one of those overworked night owl EMS worker!
]]>By: Johnhttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-522905
Tue, 18 May 2010 03:55:46 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-522905This all seems very mystifying. When coffee hit Europe, the first thing people and governments noticed was the huge drop in workplace accidents. The change was so gigantic it was impossible to miss. That was the motivation for all sorts of government policies unique to coffee — tiny license fees for coffee sellers on the street in the eary morning, virtually no tariffs for imported coffee beans, ever, lower taxes for coffee sellers than for anyone else, and so on. According to the NYT, apparently some people in US society have just noticed what The civilized world has known since the 1700s.
]]>By: Davidhttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-522873
Tue, 18 May 2010 01:50:22 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-522873I work nights running a restaurant and then switch over to “normal hours” the three days I’m off
I constantly feel jet lagged
being fueled on caffeine (but not too much) is critical for my success and zero alcohol for the best quality sleep (plus a shower)
]]>By: blacklighthttp://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/comment-page-1/#comment-522775
Mon, 17 May 2010 21:48:55 +0000http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/caffeine-on-the-night-shift/#comment-522775Caffeine doesn’t work on me – I can pass out and snore away within 30 min of drinking two or three large glasses of strong, black coffee – which is why I haven’t drunk coffee for years :) On the other hand, fear does a pretty good job of keeping me awake :)
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